Gulf leaders gathering in Bahrain should back the lifting of the decade-old embargo imposed on Iraq as well as the resumption of full air links with the country, an official Iraqi newspaper said Saturday.
Al-Jumhuriya urged the leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council to follow the final resolution of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) last November.
The OIC called for dialogue between Baghdad and the United Nations to "lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq" and said there was no obstacle to civilian flights to and from Iraq.
"We ask the participants of the GCC summit not to forget this resolution or pretend to forget it since they themselves signed it," the government daily said.
Al-Jumhuriya said it did not expect any great decisions from the Gulf leaders on supporting the "Palestinian cause and other causes of the Arab nation".
"We do not expect to see armies of liberation surging from the Arabian peninsula on occupied Palestine to fight the dirty Jews and liberate Jerusalem after the GCC summit," the paper said.
"We also do not expect the summit to announce that US and British forces must withdraw from Gulf countries and their territorial waters.
"We do expect, however, some summit participants, notably Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to play the same scratched record and repeat the US and British lies" on Iraq, it said.
The Gulf Arab monarchies -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- were to hold their end-of-year summit in Manama on Saturday and Sunday.
Baghdad's ties with the region have vastly improved this year, but Iraq remains at loggerheads with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the emirate that Iraqi forces occupied between August 1990 and February 1991 -- BAGHDAD (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
